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What's
New At CEH

Greetings,
Lots of new things to share, and a special edition of the newsletter.
Crow and I have been discussing new material regarding cosmologies and
it has inspired him to research and to write a lovely article. We are
putting together a workshop based on this material, but in
the meantime we hope you will enjoy the fruits of his labor.

This issue also has information on Upcoming Newsletters and Workshops
we are teaching, and a few extra seasonal tidbits you might find
interesting. Issue #16 is also on its way soon...

Blessings,
Bekki and Crow

Upcoming
Issues
of
the
NewsletterIssue 16: Transformation and
Healing in Our Community Articles and written
material by readers regarding recent experiences they have had with
personal and earth healing in their lives.Issue 17: Speaking with the
Spirits: Divining
through
Tarot
and
other
Card
OraclesIssue 18: We're looking for a
topicIssue 19: We're looking for a
topicIf you have an idea for
a theme for an
upcoming newsletter we'd love to
hear from you.

Dear Friends and Readers,

A few months ago I wrote an
initial version of this article and Bekki very kindly published it in
the CEH Newsletter, as a special edition. As often happens with my
work, friends and students will see and comment on it and this inspires
further developments.

So, here is Shamanic
Cosmologies, Version II. Bekki and I discussed how to best communicate
the new material; whether to simply send on the additional writing or
to integrate it into a “new, revised” version. A couple of readers
found the latter option more effective and here it is. This version
includes revisions to the already published material and integrates all
the new material as well: I believe you will find it even more
interesting and useful than the initial effort.

Once again, feedback
directly to crow@church-of-earth-healing.org will be very helpful. I will be
making a one day presentation of Shamanic Cosmologies at Teach on the
Beach in October 2010 including lots of ceremony and journeywork. A
full weekend workshop is also in the works.

SHAMANIC COSMOLOGIES by Crow
Swimsaway PhD

Bekki and I have always
taught shamanism within the framework of the traditional “layer cake”
cosmology; Upper, Middle and Lower worlds with various manifestations
of Spirit and reality in each.**** This has been useful, effective and
correlated well with our own and students’ experiences during
journeying. We also discuss and encourage students to experience the
World Tree and World Mountain (sometimes called the Axis Mundi) which
often grow and flourish in the midst of the layer cake. Thus, I was a
little surprised a few months ago when Bekki initiated a discussion of
shamanic cosmologies with me and urged me to look into the literature
and write up my findings (see Bibliography below).

It sounded intriguing so I
set out. My discoveries have been so exciting that I have mentioned the
work at almost every workshop we have taught recently. This work also
became quite central to the fall ’09 teaching of our Two Week Intensive
Training. There is more out there than the “layer cake cosmology”
suggests; and contemporary practitioners, students and healers are
missing out when they do not expand their understanding to encompass
these more comprehensive perceptions of the cosmos that surrounds us.*

Forethought
Human experiences of time and space are deeply interwoven and
interdependent. There are two consistent themes in tribal shamanic
experiences of time: time is cyclical and not the linear progression
Western scientific thought perceives it to be, and there is an easy
acceptance of simultaneity. The latter I often express to students as
the principal of “both/and” as compared with the more common Western
insistence on “either/or”. This means that two things and/or two events
may occupy the same space and/or the same time simultaneously. It also
means that anyone (and a whole culture) may hold contrasting or
conflicting ideas on any given subject and be unconcerned about the
apparent disjunctures.** In the following paragraphs, please note how
often these perceptions are of significance.

The Layer Cake, World
Mountain, Tree and River
The three-layered view of shamanic realities is certainly the one most
commonly described in the ethnographies dealing with tribal shamanism
anywhere, whether in Mongolia/Siberia, Central, South and North America
and elsewhere.

The Layer Cake in Siberia

The /Kavlevala Mythology/
(1999) and /The Mythology of All Races/ (1927) present examples of
shamans from Finland and all across the north of Europe and Asia acting
within a three layered universe; the material is especially interesting
in drawing on early mythologies and early travellers’ reports of these
areas (which largely agree with later, more scholarly ethnographic
works).

Hoppal (2007, 39-47) has a
very helpful summary article, Cosmic Symbolism in Siberian Shamanhood,
which outlines the constant appearance of the elements of the Siberian
cosmos in every aspect of shamans’ costumes. We tend to think of
portrayals of, for instance, the World Tree, on a shaman’s drum or robe
as being symbolical of the shamans’ beliefs. This is only partly true,
because:

“…the shaman’s body was
viewed as a reduced replica of the Universe, the shaman’s dress and the
making of it were regarded as a symbolic act of the creation or
recreation of the Universe. The upper portion of the ritual costume of
the shaman, the headgear, is an equivalent of the sky; while the trunk
underneath corresponds to the earth, with the feet, the shaman’s boots
corresponding to the lower world.” (46)

Three things are important
for us here: the three layered cosmos; the human body of the shaman as
being essentially the same as the cosmos; and the ability of the
shaman, who is the cosmos, to also be able, even required, to create
that same cosmos in an earthly, material form. This quotation does not
mention the other major element of the Siberian cosmology, the World
Tree which is “one of the central organizing principles”. It is the
shaman’s pathway connecting the three layers.

Mongolian and Turkish
peoples, as reported by Dioszegi (1998, 3, 167-8) and many others, have
very complex systems of spirits (numerous gods, the gods’ children,
Earth, Fire and other beings) which are tightly tied with their
perceptions of the three layered cosmos and the cardinal directions.
For comparison with other shamanic cosmologies it is worth noting that
spirits are found on all three “worlds” and that each world may include
several strata, from 3 to 17. The importance of spirits is often
determined by how high up in the layers they are to be found. An
amusing expansion of the World Tree concept is that shamans are raised
in nests upon the Tree and that, similar to the gradations of spirits
by the levels and directions where they live, the higher the shaman’s
nest of origin, the greater is the shaman’s power. (5) Also exciting
for us is that, “the universe is full of heavenly bodies peopled by
spiritual beings.”

An alternative to the World
Tree is the River of the Universe or “world stream” which the Evenki
(Dioszegi, 166) perceive as connecting the three worlds. (Dioszegi
quotes extensively from the original Russian language studies by
Anisimov from 1952 and 1959. The references are given in Russian in
Cyrillic script; I can not translate or transcribe them.) The Evenki
refer to this river as their “clan river”. Shamans do most of their
journeywork along this river of Spirit, going to the headwaters to
visit unborn souls, the middle course where the present day clan
members live and the lower course when shamans do psychopomp work to
help deceased souls reach their home in the land of the dead. (It would
be fascinating to know if there is an ordinary reality, Middle World,
river which corresponds in some way with the River of the Universe.)
The shaman’s drum is the boat, the shaman’s stick the oar and so on for
the Evenki. While they enjoy a tripartite view of the cosmos it is not
clear from the written material whether the parts are arranged in
layers or, as the river idea seems to imply, are all on the same plane.
Of course, this may be a perfect example of “both/and”, with there
being a vertically layered cake, the layers of which are easily
connected by a flowing river.

The Setting for the Layer
Cake
Those of you who have taken our Fundamentals of Shamanism workshop in
recent years know that some time ago it became clear to us that tribal
shamans sometimes journey beyond the cake into what might be called its
astronomical setting. That is, they go so far “up”, they zoom beyond
the Upper World. This happens occasionally by chance and enthusiasm in
early journeys when one of our students finds herself on Earth’s Moon,
the Sun of our solar system or some other identifiable body in outer
space instead of in the Upper World. Their experiences are always
credible.

Traditional shamans have
known how to visit these destinations for a long time. An example we
often share is Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ story of the isolated tribal
shaman in Mexico who was very bored with her tales of humankind’s
“first moon landing.” The shaman went there all the time and could
recount many features of the experience “just discovered” by our men in
space suits. Another well known instance of journeys to places beyond
the cake is the ancient West African Dogon tradition that Sirius is two
stars, not the one it appears to be to the naked eye. This was known by
them centuries before Western scientists had a telescope strong enough
to see both stars: the Dogon claim ancestry from Sirius and their
shamans journey there even today.

Away from the Layer Cake
We also teach an alternative approach to the shamanic realities from
the Sami of Norway (taught to us, and used with the permission of, Sami
shaman Ailo Gaup). In the Sami walking journey one walks continuously
in this Middle World reality until trance takes one ‘sideways’ through
the veil into an alternative reality, the Sacred Land, where one may
find and make strong connections with powerful landscapes, allies and
so on. This entrance into the Sami Sacred Land implies that the
realities are side by side rather than piled one on top of another.
(Bekki notes: it may mean that we are accessing the upper and lower
worlds by a “sideways” door. That is a concept that will mess with your
non-shamanic rational head!) (Crow replies: unless you apply the
“both/and” principal mentioned above…)

I do not know if this
experience correlates with current astrophysical theories of parallel
universes but it sounds similar. It is certainly a style of journeying
which, again, most students find easy and rewarding. It is an effective
way of perceiving shamanic realities and of visiting them.

Within the Layer Cake
One of the first recent expansions of my perceptions of shamanic
realities came in reading about the Culina and the Wakeuenai of South
America (Langdon 1992). There the shamans do travel both up and down in
a layered cosmos. What is new to me and exciting is that within the so
called “ordinary reality” of the Middle World, they make powerful
connections with Spirit. The connections they make are very like Lower
World animal and plant ally connections. They are manifestations of
Spirit which become helpers to the shamans. Since this takes place in
the Middle World, there is some resemblance to what I identify as
experiences with Spirits of Place. However, it is very rare for Spirits
of Place to become active helpers to contemporary shamanic
practitioners.

Even the Dragon Waters
Dragon who lives in or occupies the space in the hill behind our house,
who is vastly helpful and supportive to us in our work and who loves to
vet new students when they come to study at Dragon Waters, almost never
travels to help us elsewhere and has only once come forward to help in
the healing of a client at Dragon Waters (a very troubled young man
from Japan). The Dragon is the spirit of this place, is very localized
in its focus, dislikes travelling elsewhere and is rarely a healing
spirit for us or anyone else. The Spirits with whom the Culina and
Wakeueni work, while they are known to be accessible at specific Power
Spots within the Middle World landscape, become accompanying, helping,
healing spirits for the shamans who are strong enough to go and find
them. They exist in specific directions as seen from the shamans’
villages and the directional correlates of their locations seem to be
an important part of their nature and the shamans’ cosmology.

This cosmology, which has
both vertical and horizontal coordinates has other expressions for
these peoples. Departed souls need to undergo a healing and empowering
transformational journey which must take place horizontally in the
Middle World /or a plane
which overlaps it/. Once transformed, the souls then move
to paradise in an Upper World. Now things get complicated: there are
several related axes involving seeming dichotomies between jaguars and
peccaries (both significant allies to the shamans), wildness (jungle,
water, animals, plants) and social life (the life of the people) and
men and women. Jaguars, men and wildness group together as do
peccaries, women and social life. All three of these oppositional
pairings exist horizontally in the Middle World and, simultaneously
vertically between Upper and Lower Worlds. At any given moment, any
given individual is aware of his or her own presence along all these
axes within a dynamically moving multi-dimensional cosmos. For instance
the hunter, the man of the wild who invokes Jaguar energy, is active in
the (peccary-influenced) life of the people.

Spirits of Place for
Migratory Peoples
Vitebsky, in his study of a contemporary Siberian reindeer people, the
Eveny (2005), makes some observations about their relationships with
the spirits that fill their Middle World. As with the Dragon Waters
Dragon, these spirits do not move about; they are attached /to very
specific landscape features and locations/ and don’t wander. Yet they
are very powerful connections for these herders and their shamans
alike. The annual circuit of migration would not be successful without
the help of these spirits at stopping places along the route. These
read to me as truly Spirits of Place but with a power and a place in
the herder’s perception of their world far more intense than any Spirit
of Place has been for our students or for me, except possibly our just
mentioned Dragon.

This culture has been active
in its landscape for a good long time; perhaps this is how such
land-based relationships with Spirit have always been for shamanic
peoples. The significance for our reconsideration of shamanic
cosmologies is that the Middle World for the Eveny is mapped with
powerful points of Spirit; it fairly glows with these Beings whom the
herders look forward to being with, living with, working with on a
regular and, they hope, predictable basis.

Dogon Land-Based Cosmos
As we look more closely at land-based cosmologies, the Dogon come to
mind. Back from the stars but not forgetting them, the Dogon are
intensely integrated with the landscape in which their communities
exist. For those of you who have not enjoyed the /Millennium/ film about the Dogon and death
(Cultural Survival 1992 ), it works something like this: out on the
flat lands, the sere plains in front of their villages, live wild
animals, wild and dangerous spirits and souls awaiting rebirth; in the
villages, which are built at the foot of and part way up the sides of
quite steep cliffs, are family, community, vitality, food and all other
things of culture which makes life worth living; in natural caves at
the top of the cliffs are the dwelling places of the dead and the home
of the ancestors. Even higher are the stars, home of the ancient ones
and spiritual homeland of the Dogon. The differences and natural
boundaries between the three geographical zones are visible and clearly
known to all Dogon. This cosmology is partly horizontal, connecting
wild and cultured, and partly vertical connecting culture/people with
the vital spiritual powers above them. The connections are not
metaphorical or solely metaphysical. People go from the villages /out
/a little way to raise their crops of millet, then further to hunt and
confront other wildness in the bush. They climb strenuously /up/ the steep cliffs above the villages,
first to bury the dead at one level, then later to move the bones up to
the top to join the ancestors. This is only half the cycle however, for
there is a marvellous return, back down and around to the bush, of
souls ready to be reborn and return to the safety of the villages.

The Shuar
The primary spirit upon whom Shuar shamans depends lives in neither the
Upper nor the Lower World (Perruchon, 2003). ‘ Tsunki’ is to be found
at the ever so limnal river bank. The book is a little unclear but
apparently Tsunki may be found at any place along any riverbank; there
do not seem to be preferred places where she is to be found most
easily. She is clearly a spirit with Middle World contact points and a
powerful Middle World existence. It is clearly stated by the
ethnographers that, “There is only one world, which is shared by all
beings, humans, spirits and animals.” (218) Within this one world there
are multiple aspects or ways of perceiving reality. By dreaming, having
visions and imbibing ayahuasca one gains knowledge, insight and
understandings drawn from experiences in a ‘non-ordinary’ aspect of
what we would call the Middle World. It is also ayahuasca which makes
contact with Tsunki possible. This cosmology seems similar to the
parallel worlds of the Sami except for the insistence that the visions,
etc., are found within this world, the denial of any movement upward,
downward or sideways from this world, and a relatively limited
repertory of connections with Spirit.

All of which is fascinating
and exists along with the presence of Etsa and Nunkui. Etsa is of the
sky, is the sun and the hunter. Nunkui is of the earth, is earth spirit
and gardener. There does seem to be an active tripartite, even
vertically ordered, perception here. Perhaps more important are the
elemental correlations: Etsa, sky and sun (fire and/or air?); Nunkui,
earth; Tsunki, water. Further, it is felt that Etsa and Nunkui are
“stable and good” while Tsunki is “floating and ambiguous.” ( 324).
Elemental energies may not have obvious cosmological coordinates
according to our usual expectations, however the elements play powerful
parts in shamanic work and do appear to be concepts by which the Shuar
order their world.

To all of this add the fact
that Tsunki appears in human form and is usually the spirit lover of
the shaman. In a telling summary (Perruchon 324) says, “She may take
shape as a beautiful and attractive woman who gives shamanic power to
those who encounter her, but she may also show herself as an anaconda,
an animal that is feared and is thought to pull people down to the
depths of the whirlpools to devour them. In the same way the shaman has
this ‘double face’, is able to cure as well as to kill.” It is not
unusual for spirit lovers to be dangerous (powerful, controlling), and
manifest and even to mate as animals (Swimsaway 2010). Tsunki empowers
the shamans through her love. Her existence establishes the Middle
World as the shamans’ realm. Nunkui and Etsa have their places and
their elemental powers which are acknowledged by the Shuar but their
existence has not generated a working attachment to a tripartite
cosmos.

A Contemporary Scientific,
Spiritual Re-orientation on Cosmology
One of the joys of Teaching on the Beach in Duck, North Carolina, in
October 2009*** was studying with Nybor, renowned artist and elder in
the Pagan community. His offering was Theoretical Metaphysics, a most
phenomenal look, using contemporary topography and physics, at the
universe and how we perceive the universe, especially when we do
ritual. I invite you to contact Nybor directly for details of this
material. He is brilliant, and he loves to share his wisdom. I bring it
up here because of its strong resonance with shamanic cosmologies.
Nybor has been able to make a clear, unique and highly original
analysis and description of how the alternative realities and ordinary
reality (he calls them the astral and the physical) exist, what their
form is, how they are related and how we get from one to another. For
Pagans the transition occurs when a ritual circle is cast; for shamans
the action is in journeying. In Nybor’s analysis, the transition point
from one realm to another is a membrane between them.

This makes sense
shamanically: how many of you have popped through the membrane, the
soap bubble, on your way to the Upper World? And think of the endless
repetitions of the notion of shamanism as a limnal, a ‘threshold’
practice in which it is the function of the shaman to bridge the
threshold, to travel both ways through the membrane to make regular
commerce between Spirit (in the astral or shamanic reality) and
humankind (in the physical or ordinary reality).

There may be another
correlation too. Nybor indicates that the membrane is in the form of a
circle (significant when pagans ‘cast a circle’)/* *and/ a sphere (what
many tribal shamans connect with when they work the seven directions to
connect with Spirit, call their allies, etc.). There is some tricky
sacred geometry involved (difficult for me to describe, contact Nybor)
but, with the shamanic understanding of /both/and/, most shamans today can accept the
simultaneous presence and significance of the circle/sphere. This
relates directly to the present interest in cosmologies because, when
the shaman invokes the seven directions she stands at the Centre of her
cosmos. The six points around her (cardinal directions plus above and
below) do, indeed, delineate a sphere. /If Nybor is correct, this is
the very sphere/circle through which she will journey to Spirit.****/

The Cosmology of Tribal
Architecture
Now, compare all the above extensions of the good old Layer Cake,
including Nybor’s, with the tribal cosmologies that are the structures
within which the people live. Part way into my research, Bekki and I
were at the ever wonderful Athens County Library in Athens, Ohio, a
significant part of my creative cosmology due to the help of
beyond-ordinary-reality-librarians there. She found (totally
serendipitously; it was lying on a shelf in full view) and plonked down
on the table for my attention, /Native American Architecture /( Nabokov
1989). Every few pages throughout this significant work there is a
drawing of a native dwelling as cosmology.

We must stretch our Western
selves here: this is not symbolism; the buildings do not ‘represent’ a
native perception of the cosmos. One does not say, “That is the West
side so I am reminded of going within, the dark, the shaman’s journey.”
When one goes to the West side, one is there, in the dark. Each
building is the cosmos. When one is in the building, be it ritual
structure (sweat lodge or kiva) or dwelling (hogan, teepee) one is /in*
*/and a part of the cosmos. [There are two other sources which speak of
the Mongolian Ger (Sarangerel 2000 9) and the Sami Lavvu (Olsen 1993),
both dwellings, in the same terms.]

This is not to imply a
sharing of an identical cosmology throughout Native North America.
There are at least as many experiences of the cosmos as there are
styles of building. This book shows many buildings, and the author
cosmologically analyses at least ten of them. Yet, all of these
cosmological expressions are familiar to those of us practicing
shamanism today and all of them go beyond the layer cake.

It is significant that,
“Many Indian narratives tell of a ‘Distant Time’…when a ‘First House’
was bestowed upon a tribe as a container for their emerging culture.
Some tribes likened the creation of the world itself to the creation of
a house…” (Nabokov 38 ) Most tribes had special ceremonies for the
building and completion of a house, marking its significance as a
cosmological container.

As with the Culina,
mentioned above, the cosmos and the houses were an integral part of
everyone’s social world. Every type of building had areas designated
for women, for men, sub-groupings such as single men, children,
gathering areas for eating, ceremonial areas and so on. Every area
existed in the cosmologically appropriated place: east or west, to the
left or right of the entry way, near or far from the centre and its
fire, etc.

It is my feeling that the
integration of the human beings who lived in these remarkable
structures into their cosmos extended to their lives outside their
buildings. I believe that they felt as integrated and at home in their
universe when they moved about the landscape of their native
territories as they did in their buildings. Very often the buildings
mirror significant aspects of the landscape.

A Different Layer Cake and a
Huge Axis Mundi in Ancient Egypt
In /Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts, /Jeremy Naydler (2005) has
expended impressive energy and scholarship gathering evidence for the
shamanic aspects of ancient Egyptian culture. He is working from texts
found within the pyramid of Unas (end of the Fifth Dynasty, roughly
4350 BP) and great personal knowledge of Egyptian high culture. While
there is archaeological data about the common people throughout Egypt’s
long history, I know of no convincing information about what one might
call “common” (that is, not associated with religion, courts and kings)
shamans during that time. (In most cultures, shamans leave a very light
archaeological footprint.) Naydler’s work is very convincing, however,
and I find it believable that the rituals of burial and rebirth of
early Egyptian Kings (part of the function of the early pyramids)
followed the patterns of classical shamanic practice elsewhere in the
world.

“Such important shamanic
themes as the initiatory death and dismemberment followed by rebirth
and renewal, the transformation of the shaman into a power animal, the
ecstatic ascent to the sky, and the crossing of the threshold of death
in order to commune with the ancestors and gods are all to be found in
the pyramid texts…” (15)

Unfortunately, Naydler does
not spell out many details of the Egyptian cosmology. We do know that
their diurnal sun cycle and the lives of various deities operated
within celestial and sub-earthly realms while having an effect upon
humans living on the earth between. East and West and the paths between
were also of great significance. When the kings underwent their
initiatory death experience, the death took place within a sarcophagus
in a pyramid on the earthly plane. Then the king ascended into the sky,
indeed broke through the “basin” of the sky and penetrated to the
supercelestial region “beyond space and time”. It was there, with the
gods, that the king received initiation and the power to return to the
Middle World and become a more effective ruler. Some kings underwent
this process repeatedly. Naydler references Kalweit (1988) who gives
several examples of shamans passing upward through holes or windows
(sometimes these were stars) in the sky for special spiritual
connections. The kings’ ascent was not the same as the journey beyond
the layer cake described in the first half of this Cosmologies article.
This “supercelestial region” seems instead to be another layer in the
cake: either a fourth, superior, layer or an elaboration of the upper
third of the cake. I tend to favour the latter possibility because
there are several shamanic traditions, including Mongolia and Siberia,
where connection with the gods is important and it always occurs on one
of the Upper World levels.

When early Egyptians died a
physical death on earth, their spirits passed immediately to the Land
of the Dead. This place seemed to lie in a Lower World realm with its
entry in the West. Sometimes it is also described as “being in the
West” and still below the Middle World. The passage of a soul through
many strange and challenging adventures in the Lower World leads to
eventual judgement: if “bad” one’s heart was eaten by a monster and
that seems to have been that; if “good” then one was give an estate in
a rich and fertile part of the Land of the Dead. There was also a
simultaneous belief in rebirth from the Land of the Dead back into the
land of the living. As in other systems, there were deities who were
primarily active in each of the three levels. The deities, e.g. those
who dealt with the dead in the Land of the Dead but lived in Celestial
realms, could visit and work in more than one level.

Of great importance to the
Egyptians was the North Celestial Pole as an Axis Mundi. King Unas, in
an image in his tomb is shown suckling the breast of Ipys, the
hippopotamus goddess, protectress of childbirth. This is of huge
significance: this breast was, most likely, at the North Celestial Pole
in those days, with Ipys portrayed with her hand resting on the mooring
post that stabilized the universe. In other words, the king was about
as /centred/ on the power of the Pole as he could
get. Naydler notes: “In shamanic cosmology, the North Celestial Pole is
both the axis around which the cosmos turns and the opening through
which the gods descend to earth.” (263) The Pole, a point in the night
sky seen as an opening, is obviously not a tree or pillar-like Axis
Mundi. However, one of the ways that Unas rose to heaven was to climb
the Sky Ladder, sometimes portrayed as a /djed/ pillar. The ladder took him through
the opening so that his interaction with the gods and his
transformation could take place. Unas climbed the Axis Mundi ladder to
enter the Axis Mundi opening. “In shamanic traditions worldwide, ascent
to the spirit world by means of a ladder is commonly reported and
indeed ritually enacted.” (Naydler 273) (In Korea the shaman’s ladder
is often made of swords with the very sharp edges uppermost where the
barefoot shaman must tread on them.)

From the Night Sky of the
Maya
We are truly blessed in studying shamanism among the Maya. We have
excellent ethnographies of contemporary shamanic practice. We have
exquisite scholarly archaeological reports. These have been brought
together in /Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman’s Path
(Freidel et al 1993). / This is a vast and complex study: I will only
mention a few highlights from it here while recommending that anyone
interested in shamanic practice seek it out. (Also easily accessible
and of value are the reports of contemporary Maya shamanism in /The
Woman in the Shaman’s Body/ by Barbara Tedlock, who, with her husband,
was trained and initiated as a Maya shaman[ 2005 ].

Today every Maya home has,
at its centre, a three-stone hearth; in the homes fires are built in
the hearth daily. The central hearth and special recognition of the
four cardinal corners are part of a process of centring which
contemporary Maya do for themselves daily. They do it for ceremonies,
they also do it whenever they begin to cultivate a /milpa/ (cornfield). Three-stone hearths, and
the centring practices are found in Maya temples of 3000 years ago and
are portrayed in the elaborate artwork on the temple walls. The hearth
exists in the sky: it is the three stars, Alnitak, Saiph and Rigel in
Orion. It was originally made as the first act of the beginning of the
current universe: First Father – One-Maize-Revealed – placed the three
stones even before he raised the World Tree and gave circular motion to
the sky. Itzamna, the first shaman, and two other paddlers took First
Father across the night sky until their canoe upended dropping them at
the place of the three stones of Creation. They brought him there so he
can be reborn and create the new universe.

It is possible to stand,
today, at the navel of the world in many Maya communities. At
Momostenango it is called /waqibal,/ Six-Place. The classic Maya called
the tree at the centre of their world “Six-Sky” or “Raised-up-Sky” for
the creation event when the World Tree was first erected and lifted up
the sky.

“I truly did stand at the
place of the creation, not only in terms of space as the Momostekans
understand it, but in terms of time. The axis of /waqibal /pierced
straight back three thousand years to the kings on their stone images
at [the archaeological site of] La Venta. /Waqibil/ truly is and was hallowed ground and
in my heart I centered the world.” (Freidel 172)

Contemporary Maya shamans
make an elaborate outdoor altar structure, a raised table with four (or
six) legs under an arbour of vines. During ceremony, when “This altar
is the focus of all prayer and ritual attention.” (55), the cardinal
corners are marked by four standing men and four seated boys acting as
particular Spirits. (This is a structure unique to the Maya. One is
clearly shown in a photograph and drawing on page 56 in Friedel’s
book.) The altar is entirely integrated into their cosmos, and, like
the other major shamanic elements mentioned above, entirely connected
with early Maya practices and an understanding of the cosmos 3000 years
old. To the back of the altar is a Maya cross, a “First Tree”, the
World Tree. The arbour of six vines or four vines is composed of the
twisted vines of the sky umbilicus, connected to the navel of
One-Maize-Revealed. The vines meet at /u hol gloria/, the North Pole; 3000 years ago not
marked by a star but by a dark “opening” in the night sky. Four green
corn plants mark the corners thus identifying the altar as a maize-tree
place, another version of the Maya World Tree.

These are but three of many
examples. I find it impossible to summarize Maya cosmology. It clearly
shares many elements with other shamanic cosmologies, especially its
focus on the World Navel and World Tree. Seemingly unusual are the
intense connection between visible celestial events, shamanic practice
and other practical matters (war, politics, crops and planting) on
earth. Freidel says (113), “The gods wrote all of these actions in the
sky so that every human, commoner and king alike, could read them and
affirm the truth of the myth.” The “myth” continues to play itself out
in the skies still visible to today’s Maya, as it has for at least 3000
years. The integration of ancient cosmology into current shamanic
practice may be unique but I suspect that this was more often the case
than not with other shamanic cultures, if we but had adequate history
and ethnography to reveal it to us. Shamanism, world-wide, is an
ancient practice. I wish that we could be more aware of its roots,
trunk and branches in more cultures.

What Does This Tell Us
Today?
Our general approach to teaching shamanism involves helping each
student establish their own shamanic cosmos, their own cosmological
point of view. Part of this is getting a feeling for where you are. The
following suggested exercises may help activate and open up this
process for you. They are good for those who wish to expand their
cosmos and experience what they may have been missing.

Go back and review your
Upper and Lower World journeying experiences. Do a little mapping;
journey beyond where you usually go in each reality. You may find these
places are different, larger and more complex than you now know.

Have a go at a ‘zoom beyond’
journey. Intend a visit to the Moon, for instance. Every one of our
students who has accidentally done this has had fun and gained
knowledge.

Is there a landscape feature
that you have experienced that has particular attraction for you? If
so, journey there with the intention of connecting with powerful
spirits that live there. Ask whomever you connect with if they will
help you as your allies do.

Are you as peripatetic as
Bekki and I are? Check out some of the power places along your way by
journeying to them. You can do this from home if it is not possible to
journey as you travel: stay in the Middle World with the intention to
go to the spirit of that beautiful mountain you drive along a couple of
times a year. Spirits you find there may help you in your travels.

How about that membrane,
that circle, that sphere that Nybor and others perceive. Whenever you
journey, especially if you call in the spirits yourself, you are using
that as your entry way whether you are aware of it or not. Now journey
with this awareness uppermost .

Have you noticed the
importance of the directions in the examples above? We ordinarily
invoke the energies of the directions when we lead or join in the
opening of circle or when we begin a journey by ourselves. Try doing
this with new awareness of the powers of each of the seven directions.
Try some journeys to/into each of the directions; pay special attention
to the centre.

Bekki and I are so impressed
with the power and significance of the elements (earth, air, fire,
water, and the fifth) that we teach a series of workshops offering
intense shamanic, journeying, ceremonial experiences of each. Have a go
at journeying to your personal favourite elemental energy.

We may also gain by a
stronger attention to the World Navel, World Tree, World Mountain,
World Ladder, the central and centring energies connecting us with the
North Celestial Pole, whether it is seen as our well known North Star
or as a dark and mysterious opening in the sky. Journeys to each of
these are enlivening experiences.

Talk to your
drumming/journeying circle about this article and do some of the
exercises together. You are, all together, in the cosmos whenever
anyone “opens the circle”. Do this with everyone’s full awareness and
involvement. As the opening is sung, danced, called, know that the
space you are in (yes, that very living room) /is the shamanic cosmos/;
that the circle/sphere invoked is where you will all cross the
threshold into your shamanic journeys. Note how powerful it is when it
is done as a group with mutual awareness as well as mutual intention.

Please Let Crow Know
Please let me have feedback, not just to the concepts and observations
in this brief article but, more importantly ,about how your own
journeys and your own cosmological perceptions expand with the
increased awareness suggested here. And don’t forget simultaneity and
the both/and principal.

*In the midst of writing
this article we had a lovely visit from Daniel Foor, graduate of the
Two Week Intensive, December/January 2003. Daniel is presently living
in the San Francisco Bay area and has become a practitioner of shamanic
ceremony focused on healing the earth and our human connections with
it. As he has created the ceremonies focusing on seven mountains around
the Bay he has connected with, created, and is using a very tribal
cosmos. His intense interactions with that world remind me of the
Reindeer People described by Vitebsky (2005).

**I was reminded of the
importance of this aspect of tribal cosmologies in discussion with
Darwin Mendoza at the Circle of Ancestors Workshop early in 2010. His
help has inspired me to emphasize these concepts and include data from
the Maya and the ancient Egyptians along with more about Mongolia and
Siberia. Alas, this will make more work for Darwin who has been asked
to translate Cosmologies into Spanish for his teachers in Honduras.

**** The Circle: spiritual
perception of and working with the circle is highly developed for some
tribal peoples. The Native American Medicine Wheel is one well known
example of this. However, there is also the common (actually the most
common for shamanic peoples) cosmological perception that the cosmos
exists in layers. I call this the "layer cake cosmology" because
whether the cake has three or twenty seven layers (Yummy!) it is
experienced as one disc (circle) above another.

On-Line There are, of
course, endless numbers of on-line resources with bits and pieces of
information about tribal shamanic cosmologies. The printed material,
especially those with deep ethnographic experiences and/or references
always seem more satisfactory to me. However, I have looked at the
following and found them accurate and useful enough:

Do
you
know
someone
who
might
be interested in Shamanism, healing or
metaphysics in general, or our work in particular? Please do forward
this Newsletter to friends that would be interested... You'll find the
Church of Earth Healing on line HERE.

Bekki's
astrology
course
for
Chrysalis Online Courses , First Steps in Astrology, is now
live. This is the first
segment of a two-part course that fully covers all aspects of natal
chart reading, and Bekki will be the primary tutor for the course.
Bekki did exhaustive research, writing and editing to make this course
one of the best of its kind available.

You can also find Crow's
introductory shamanic course also at Chrysalis Online Courses.

We are in the process of scheduling other workshops for 2010.
Please check our Schedule for
updates.
We expect to schedule another Opening
the Shamanic Voice class for the Spring. If you are interested
in our 2-Week Advanced Healing
Intensive, this is a pre-req for that training.

And if there is a class you've been waiting to take, let
us know so we can schedule it, here or at your location.

With
the
record
cold temperatures that we've been having this January, the
birds have been visiting the herb garden in droves. We often watch them
from our front windows.We have been filling the
feeders with sunflower seeds daily, and have found that our local
feedstore carries it in 50 pound bags for a better price than we've
seen anywhere. So check with the locals-- you may find that the best
deals are not necessarily at Wal-Mart... and you'll be supporting the
local economy...

And if you think herbs are
for the birds... you may be right. One of the best side effects of
growing echinacea, St.John's wort, elecampane and other medicinals is
that the birds love the seeds. So if you've been cutting back the tops
of your herbs in the fall, let the seedheads dry on the plant instead.
Come the winter snows, you will find bits of seed fluff on top of the
snow, or see the finches and other songbirds perched on the dried
flower stalks as they feed on the seeds. And they will spread the seed
around in the process, giving you more plants to harvest next year, or
to gift to friends.

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